Potential 2016 GOP candidate Ben Carson was a guest on Tuesday's Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss in part Ferguson and race relations. According the African-American Carson, "things were better before this president was elected." The problem, he explained, was the president's "unusual emphasis on race."

Carson is a retired neurosurgeon who is perhaps best known for his speech at the national prayer breakfast where he openly criticized President Obama's progressive policies while Obama was right there beside him. Carson's central argument is that progressives like Obama try to make minorities play the victim game. In his interview with Hewitt, Carson continued his unflinching critique of the failures of both the president and the progressive ideology:

Hewitt: Is it going to get worse before it gets better in the United States? Because, after all, we’ve had an African-American president for six years, Ferguson is a racially-charged situation. You’re an African-American running for president on the Republican side, and I say that with the assumption that you will run, and I know you haven’t formally declared, but you’re all but in. Is it going to be another hundred years before this tableau stops unfolding every time there’s a white-black incident?

Carson: Well, you know, I actually believe that things were better before this president was elected. And I think that things have gotten worse because of his unusual emphasis on race.

Hewitt: Can you explain more? What do you mean by that? How did they get worse, and how did he contribute to it?

Carson: Well, for instance, in the incident with Henry Louis Gates, Skip Gates, and him calling out the police, and you know, how they always do this kind of thing, and the Trayvon Martin case, you know, if I had a son, this is what he would look like, rather than trying to take the balanced, objective look at things, and then, you know, what’s happened here. And then the way, which really irritates me to some degree, the way he and a bunch of progressives manipulate, particularly minority communities, to make them feel that they are victims. And of course if you think you’re a victim, you are a victim. And...

Hewitt: Was Michael Brown a victim, Dr. Carson?

Carson: Well, he became a victim based on perhaps not having a well-established ideal of how to relate to authority.

Hewitt: Let me also ask you when you say things were better before this president, some have said the President plays the so-called race card. Do you think he does?

Carson: Yes, absolutely.

Hewitt: Is he doing so right now?

Carson: He’s trying very hard not to, because I think he is aware that people are suspicious of him doing that. So you know, we keep an eye on him and hope for the best.